Test reliability is an element in test construction and test standardization and is the degree to which a measure consistently returns the same result when repeated under similar conditions.

Reliability does not imply validity. That is, a reliable measure is measuring something consistently, but not necessarily what it is supposed to be measuring. For example, while there are many reliable tests of specific abilities, not all of them would be valid for predicting, say, job performance. In terms of accuracy and precision, reliability is precision, while validity is accuracy.

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Reliability may be estimated through a variety of methods that fall into two types: single-administration and multiple-administration.
Multiple-administration methods require that two assessments are administered.

Alternate forms reliability is estimated by the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient of two different forms of a measure, usually administered together. This is sometimes known as the coefficient of equivalence

Split-half reliability treats the two halves of a measure as alternate forms. This "halves reliability" estimate is then stepped up to the full test length using the Spearman-Brown prediction formula. This is sometimes referred to as the coefficient of internal consistency. The most common internal consistency measure is Cronbach's alpha, which is usually interpreted as the mean of all possible split-half coefficients.[1] Cronbach's alpha is a generalization of an earlier form of estimating internal consistency, Kuder-Richardson Formula 20.[1]

These measures of reliability differ in their sensitivity to different sources of error and so need not be equal. Also, reliability is a property of the scores of a measure rather than the measure itself and are thus said to be sample dependent. Reliability estimates from one sample might differ from those of a second sample (beyond what might be expected due to sampling variations) if the second sample is drawn from a different population because the true reliability is different in this second population. (This is true of measures of all types--yardsticks might measure houses well yet have poor reliability when used to measure the lengths of insects.)

Reliability may be improved by clarity of expression (for written assessments), lengthening the measure,[1] and other informal means. However, formal psychometric analysis, called the item analysis, is considered the most effective way to increase reliability. This analysis consists of computation of item difficulties and item discrimination indices, the latter index involving computation of correlations between the items and sum of the item scores of the entire test. If items that are too difficult, too easy, and/or have near-zero or negative discrimination are replaced with better items, the reliability of the measure will increase.

In classical test theory, reliability is defined mathematically as the ratio of the variation of the true score and the variation of the observed score. Or, equivalently, one minus the ratio of the variation of the error score and the variation of the observed score:

where is the symbol for the reliability of the observed score, X; , , and are the variances on the measured, true and error scores respectively. Unfortunately, there is no way to directly observe or calculate the true score, so a variety of methods are used to estimate the reliability of a test.

Some examples of the methods to estimate reliability include test-retest reliability, internal consistency reliability, and parallel-test reliability. Each method comes at the problem of figuring out the source of error in the test somewhat differently.

It was well-known to classical test theorists that measurement precision is not uniform across the scale of measurement. Tests tend to distinguish better for test-takers with moderate trait levels and worse among high- and low-scoring test-takers. Item response theory extends the concept of reliability from a single index to a function called the information function. The IRT information function is the inverse of the conditional observed score standard error at any given test score. Higher levels of IRT information indicate higher precision and thus greater reliability.